Week 5 Lecture II Flashcards
infrastructure is humanity’s most visible impact on the environment
modern sustainable infrastructure is also essential to minimising human impacts on the environment.
infrastructure challenge in low-income vs high-income countries
In developing economies, providing infrastructure is the key challenge, while in developed countries, maintaining existing infrastructure, which is ageing, is a major challenge
Infrastructure systems
(including energy, transport, water, waste and digital communications) are vital for modern economic activity, but are also major sources of carbon emissions and environmental impacts.
New policies and technologies are therefore needed to enable a transition to more sustainable infrastructure systems
However, these need to take into account the long‐term risks due to increasing infrastructure interdependency, which are not well understood.
infrastructure definition
vs sustainable infrastructure
In this context we consider ‘infrastructure’ to be those assets which comprise the various supply systems for energy, transport, water and waste, while ‘sustainable infrastructure’ is that which contributes towards a future where limited resources are managed responsibly, perhaps through demand management, with minimal impact on the natural surroundings and climate
Economic perspective on infrastructure
In many ways, infrastructure defines the boundaries of national economic productivity. It is often cited as a key ingredient for a nation’s economic competitiveness (Urban Land Institute and Ernst and Young, 2011). The World Economic Forum (WEF), for example, lists infrastructure as the second ‘pillar’ in its Global Competitiveness Index, a measure of national competitiveness
Public investments in infrastructure generally have a positive impact on economic growth, and there is a strong positive relationship between the growth rates of public capital and GDP. All this suggests that significant long‐term investment in infrastructure is a desirable outcome for government and society as a whole.
Whilst such a long‐term approach is attractive in principle, there are significant practical challenges.
For example, risk‐conscious investors could be discouraged from investing in infrastructure associated with a low‐carbon economy (i.e. green infrastructure), since the economic viability of such investments relies heavily on long‐term policies. Policy frameworks such as the UK Climate Change Act (2008) are seeking to deal with such challenges, but as has been the case recently, shorter term disagreements within government about policy priorities can still have a detrimental effect on investment commitments to infrastructure. Further, investments in innovative technologies such as offshore wind are considered higher risk as these infrastructure assets lack a credible investment performance track record in most countries, reflecting that there is considerable learning and rapid technical change occurring, and developers have been historically over‐optimistic about costs and performance. This can often serve to discourage investors in these areas
In more developed countries, infrastructure systems face a number of serious challenges (Hall et al., 2016):
(i) an increased demand for infrastructure services from a growing and ageing population,
(ii) ageing infrastructure assets in need of replacement or rehabilitation,
(iii) risks of infrastructure failure, in particular from climatic extremes and security threats,
(iv) significant investment requirements to counter the vulnerabilities, capacity limitations and supply insecurities associated with an ageing infrastructure system,
(v) the increasing complexity, diversification and interdependence of infrastructure networks, and
(vi) a widespread desire to maintain and improve environmental standards, including decarbonisation across infrastructure sectors.
weakening of the resilience of infrastructure systems
The combined effect of ageing infrastructure, growing demand (nearing capacity limits) from social and economic pressures, interconnectivity and complexity leads to systematic
Climate change
is increasing the risk of extreme events (Field et al., 2012) and hence infrastructure failures.
Overcoming these multiple challenges requires
a long‐term strategic view on infrastructure provision, especially given the long lifespan (many decades or longer) of many physical infrastructure assets (particularly in water, transport and energy), and the long lead time to effect change in these systems
irreversible
Moreover, infrastructure provision can encourage patterns of development and land use that become practically irreversible. Choices about technologies can lock in patterns of behaviour and economic activity’
As part of this modelling activity, we have developed an ensemble of national infrastructure scenarios for Britain that capture exogenous variables that are external to infrastructure systems but nonetheless influence their performance. These include
PICTURE
(i) demographic change, which affects demand for infrastructure services,
(ii) economic change, which affects the demand for infrastructure services, both in final household demand and industrial sectors,
(iii) global fossil‐fuel costs, which affect both operating costs and transport costs in particular (some national policy measures may affect these costs, but these are assumed to be exogenous to the models) and
(iv) environmental change where climate change can affect resources for water and demand for energy. These scenarios are used as direct data inputs for each sector model, ensuring consistent national assumptions
Generally, both gas and electricity energy systems can be structured into the following categories:
(i) fuel sources (coal, gas oil, uranium, etc.) and power generation, (ii) transmission (high‐voltage power network, high‐pressure gas network), (iii) distribution (medium/low‐voltage power network, medium/low‐pressure gas network) and (iv) consumers (electricity/gas demand) (Chaudry et al., 2008)
gas and electricity differences
However, there are differences between these two networks. Natural gas constitutes a primary form of energy that comes from gas fields, while electrical energy is a secondary form of energy, which is formed by the transformation of primary energy (fuel) in a power plant. Gas is transported from the gas fields (suppliers) to customers through pipelines while electricity is transmitted through power circuits. Additionally, gas networks can store natural gas to be used at peak load periods while electricity cannot be stored efficiently or economically (although future electricity storage technologies may emerge).
smart network
It is believed that there is potential to increase overall system efficiency by better matching energy demand and supply through improved data monitoring and information feedback. For example, network operators will get more detailed information about supply and demand improving management of the system such as shifting demand to off‐peak times. As a result, a smart network will be able to better accommodate mass penetration of intermittent renewables and electric vehicles. However, there are many unanswered questions surrounding the system‐wide impacts on the energy system from mass uptake of ICT
Also, alternative demographic projections tend to have the following effects
(i) a larger population tends to increase expenditure by households across the economy,
(ii) a larger population also increases the size of the workforce, permitting higher employment (a higher availability of labour may also curb wage growth) and
(iii) a larger population will also raise demand for government goods and services, and therefore the requirement for necessary infrastructure to support such services.
Video: location matters
Location matters – walking or biking
Better live in an old house with a walkable location rather than a super new huse where you have to frive a car
Video: What was there before?
Field? - negative impact
Replaced or renovating a building? - positive impact
Taking emissions away from the old building
BAD BUILDING – great!!!
net zero –>
net positive
